Lancemanship in (late) medieval times

[Athos1660]

Here is an interesting website (unfortunately in French) about the techniques of the lance, used especially by mounted knights, based on the reading of medieval combat treatises (translated and available on the site), here.

The techniques of the lance seem far more diverse and complex than just the cliché of charging one opponent at full gallop, inescapably breaking one's lance on his armour at the first impact and then drawing one's sword and starting a long and exhausting melee. It looks quite a bit like the techniques of medieval staff used on foot, such as drawing aside the enemy lance using one's lance then hitting (actually a lance is a pointed staff and some medieval staff used for fights by foot were pointed).

For example, just a few drawings that are explained on the site :







Those techniques raise the question of the gait of the horses (gallop ? trot ? melees ?).
They also seem fit for one of the objectives of a mounted knight, that is just unhorsing his opponent, so that friendly foot could finish him off.

PS : I don't know much about the techniques of the lance. So any further information about them is welcome.

[fogman]

This has very little actual military implications, in terms of combat as a battlefield unit as opposed to individuals.

"Fight books, Fechtbucher, then is the terminus techniques used to indicate a vast and heterogeneous collection of manuscripts and printed books, destined to transmit on paper (or parchment) in a systematized way a highly complex system of gestures or bodily actions, often, but not always, involving the use of weapons of different sorts... [comprising] fencing manuals in the classical sense, but also works on unarmed combat, mounted combat, combat in armour, combat against multiple opponents and combinations of those... The fact that military usage, although not absent, is rather marginal may come as a surprise, but it is clear from the material that focuses almost exclusively on combat in pairs and in circumstances subject to rules and normed behaviour." (Late Medieval and Early Modern Fight Books, edited by Daniel Jaquet, Karin Verelst and Timothy Dawson, Brill, Leiden, 2016, p 9-10)

https://www.amazon.ca/Medieval-Early-Mo ... C72&sr=8-1

The BBC has an article today too,
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/2022 ... can-decode

[Athos1660]

Thanks

[MVP7]

From what I have watched and read on the subject, many of the fancier techniques were likely more wow-factor seeking and marketing than practical applicable combat techniques. Occasionally the techniques were just tongue in the cheek like the infamous "End him rightly" from Gladiatoria (MS KK5013) from 1430s.

Then again, I don't see any reason why the knights wouldn't have used their lances as effectively as possible. Certainly the encounter by two lancers would include as much avoiding and parrying the opponents lance as possibly rather than just randomly hoping you'd come out of a collision as a winner. The guards, defense and most of the techniques translated on that page are perfectly believable and seemingly well within capabilities of highly trained warrior elite. Voluntarily using the decidedly non-pointy end of the stick, on the other hand, seems a bit questionable.

The actual speed of the horse on charge is something that would have had to be a balance between force, not dislocating or breaking an arm, and maintaining a solid formation. As far as I know it remains an unknown but then again I might have missed some modern quality research on the topic.

[Athos1660]

(..)
Voluntarily using the decidedly non-pointy end of the stick, on the other hand, seems a bit questionable.
(...)

not in melee for example to keep one's lance for the next charge

you sound very sure of yourself about all this

[MVP7]

(..)
Voluntarily using the decidedly non-pointy end of the stick, on the other hand, seems a bit questionable.
(...)

not in melee for example to keep one's lance for the next charge

you sound very sure of yourself about all this

It's not very practical to swing around a lance in a crowded melee and poking its backend at someone isn't going to do much. Using the lance backwards, not to mention swinging it, isn't going to protect it from breaking either. It's probably something that likely happened but I struggle to see how it would have been a common thing.

[Athos1660]

(..)
Voluntarily using the decidedly non-pointy end of the stick, on the other hand, seems a bit questionable.
(...)

not in melee for example to keep one's lance for the next charge

you sound very sure of yourself about all this

It's not very practical to swing around a lance in a crowded melee and poking its backend at someone isn't going to do much. Using the lance backwards, not to mention swinging it, isn't going to protect it from breaking either. It's probably something that likely happened but I struggle to see how it would have been a common thing.

Your having so much certainties about this surprises me.

Some possible answers in the article mentioned in OP ("the third positon" and holding the lance with two hands).

As for me, a staff (all the more so its bottom) can hit somebody without imperatively breaking.

[TheGrayMouser]

(..)
Voluntarily using the decidedly non-pointy end of the stick, on the other hand, seems a bit questionable.
(...)

not in melee for example to keep one's lance for the next charge

you sound very sure of yourself about all this

It's not very practical to swing around a lance in a crowded melee and poking its backend at someone isn't going to do much. Using the lance backwards, not to mention swinging it, isn't going to protect it from breaking either. It's probably something that likely happened but I struggle to see how it would have been a common thing.

with

Very nice periods drawings! First , it looks like some of them suggest the two hand (half -lancing?? Haha) approach was to parry or deflect an approaching leveled lance thrust, and others suggest one could go on the offense with same two hand hold with a good concussive effect ( similar to a jab or strike with the butt of a rifle or spear) Without any velocity from a still or slow moving horse, no human can generate enough energy to do much with a single hand thrust vs a man in late era plate so it seems this could have been used with real combats. Now trying to swing a 12- 14 foot lance like a baseball bat would be unlikely, but none of the drawings suggest that.

Unfortunately not too much later doing anything other than dropping your heavy lance in a melee and pulling out a pistol would lead to an early demise:;

[Athos1660]

What's also interesting in the article mentioned in OP is that, like in the art of swordsmanship, it seems that, if we refer to treaties (and trust them), there were :

(1) several possible starting on-guard positions :
- the lance under the armpit, stuck in the lance rest (arrêt de cuirasse), the tip pointing towards the opponent on the right of the neck of the horse (that's the position that springs to mind first),
- the lance on the left side of the neck of the horse, pointing downwards (btw it seems the tip on the left side of the neck of the horse was how the lance was handled in jousts),
- the lance held almost horizontally with both hands, across the saddle ;

(2) possibilities of actions on the opponent's lance, called "prise de fer" and parry in fencing

(3) possibilities of using either the tip or the 'handle" of the weapon to hit (quite like a staff too) ;

(4) possibilities of holding the weapon sometimes with one hand, sometimes with both hands,

...which (would) make the art of using a lance very interesting.

[Athos1660]

It's not very practical to swing around a lance in a crowded melee and poking its backend at someone isn't going to do much.

From the starting position with the lance pointing upwards when the horse is immobile or at a walk...



...it seems doable, during the charge whose most part of it (if not all) will be at a trot, to switch from this vertical position to one of the 3 on-guard positions :

1) the lance under the armpit, stuck in the lance rest (arrêt de cuirasse), the tip pointing towards the opponent on the right of the neck of the horse
2) the lance on the left side of the neck of the horse, pointing downwards,
3) the lance held almost horizontally with both hands, across the saddle ;

... the third guard being :



... and it seems to me likely that, during a charge, between two charges, during an evasion or during a melee where he'd had enough room, a knight could switch from one of these on-guard positions to another by moving the lance from one side of the horse neck to the other, using his second hand and also the lance rest on the body armour as a pivot when possible (ie from guard 1 to 2 and from 2 to 1),

... and from this third guard, it seems doable to hit with the tip of the lance :



That's what combat treaties show. An interesting question for History is : were this technique and others shown in these treatises actually used on the battlefield (and from when) ?

[Athos1660]

Very nice periods drawings!

More here with a long list of downloadable treaties with translation.
For example :
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tTSk8I ... 2qHgx/view
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cRtu8D ... S8Ucd/view
https://drive.google.com/file/d/115UKnL ... Ix3WN/view
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gIz8ph ... xdsum/view

[TheGrayMouser]

Here is a link to some articles from the late Richard Alvarez whom studied and replicated lance shock tactics in the field ( with and without stirrups and saddles).

https://www.seanpoage.com/stirrup-less- ... hocking/2/

[MVP7]

Your having so much certainties about this surprises me.

Not being certain about something does not mean not favoring some possibilities as being more likely than others. The limited battlefield applicability of some treatise techniques is pretty widely recognized by people who practice and/or research HEMA or experimental archaeology in general. Other bits I'm fairly confident about are based in simple timeless physics and logic.

First of all, back of a lance is not a great weapon against plate armour. Poking with it will do little and I don't really see the benefit over trying to poke with the blunt over the pointy end. Swinging the lance like a staff comes with significant space restrictions since the knights would be fighting in a crowd with vision limited by the full helmet. Lance is also longer than your usual quarterstaff and having the pointy end in the way doesn't make it any more wieldy. Uniform thickness lance wouldn't have enough momentum to effectively counter plate armour even when swung (otherwise quarterstaves would have dominated the late medieval battlefields). A thicker reared lance might make a better bludgeoning weapon but it would still be pretty suboptimal being wood, inconveniently long and having the lance head in the way.

I also struggle to see when the knights would flip the lance around. Presumably it would happen after the charge has made contact but again there's the issue of space in the crowd, and there are also questions of time and priorities. When the knight finds himself in a crowded post-impact melee, is he really going to prioritize preserving the lance for a hypothetical next charge by spending time turning it around and using it as a deeply suboptimal blunt weapon in a life or death melee against an equally skilled peer who might have already swapped for a more optimized melee weapon? Preserving a lance isn't worth much if you die in the attempt.

There's also the lack of historical descriptions of lances being used to pummel the opponents in melee as far as I know. Then there's the polearms like halberds, bills or polaxes seemingly almost never being used on horseback despite the obvious appeal of something effective against armour, so I don't really see why a backwards lance would be more viable in that situation, being less damaging and even more unwieldy.

Unless most of those issues can be explained away, I'm going to remain very sceptical of lances being used as staffs outside of some rare opportunistic/desperate moments and assume they were generally used to thrust with the lance head even in melee.

[MVP7]

Here is a link to some articles from the late Richard Alvarez whom studied and replicated lance shock tactics in the field ( with and without stirrups and saddles).

https://www.seanpoage.com/stirrup-less- ... hocking/2/

That's a good article. It also applies to several past discussion on these forums involving saddles, stirrups and their importance in various activities.

[Athos1660]

An interesting matter seems to be the lance types available in jousts and their breakability. According to this source in French (Loïs Forster, Joust, most gracious of war art), it seems there are/were three of them (which certainly have an impact on... actual knights' impact) :

1) the war lance (called lances à outrance in French during jousts) : strong with a sharp metal tip,

2) the "lance à plaisance", less dangerous, easier to break (made with "un fer émoussé (non affûté) ou munies d’un rochet, embout formé généralement d’une triple pointe métallique, divisant d’autant la puissance d’impact en chaque point de contact et favorisant le travail de résistance de l’armure, tout en diminuant les risques de glissement")
(Btw don't tell Henri II of France breaking a lance during a joust is not dangerous),

3) the modern lance used in jousts practiced nowadays as a sport or a show with tips made of balsa (a fragile wood) and pre-split, even easier to break.

The first two types were used in medieval/renaissance jousts. The "lance à plaisance" is said to be posterior to the 13th century AD, as an option to make jousts safer.

It seems that, at least during a period of time and maybe only in some areas, one of the criteria of victory in jousts was the number of lances you could break on your opponents as the Tiptoft Rules (1466) shows it and also Froissart, in the late XVth century, about the Irish knighting ceremony mentioned in the article whose link was posted above :

“The young aspirant has to joust with light lances, such as he can easily hold, against a shield set up in a meadow on a post. The more lances he breaks, the greater the honor for him.”

That said, "a very common attested practice was to choose thick lances, hard to break, showing a willingness more to impress and show his worth than to score points" (Loïs Forster, Joust, most gracious of war art).

Maybe interestingly, a reference French dictionary of 1694 says :"In jousts, a "lance brisée" (a "broken lance") is a lance half-sawn next to the tip, so that it can easily break".

This raises the questions of the breakability of the war lance on the battlefield, of our ability to assess their actual impact/force in war conditions, etc. If the lance isn't meant to break at impact, the shock will be more violent for both opponents.

[MVP7]

Interesting points.

...
It seems that, at least during a period of time and maybe only in some areas, one of the criteria of victory in jousts was the number of lances you could break on your opponents as the Tiptoft Rules (1466) shows it and also Froissart, in the late XVth century, about the Irish knighting ceremony mentioned in the article whose link was posted above :

“The young aspirant has to joust with light lances, such as he can easily hold, against a shield set up in a meadow on a post. The more lances he breaks, the greater the honor for him.”

That said, "a very common attested practice was to choose thick lances, hard to break, showing a willingness more to impress and show his worth than to score points" (Loïs Forster, Joust, most gracious of war art).

Maybe interestingly, a reference French dictionary of 1694 says :"In jousts, a "lance brisée" (a "broken lance") is a lance half-sawn next to the tip, so that it can easily break".

This raises the questions of the breakability of the war lance on the battlefield, of our ability to assess their actual impact/force in war conditions, etc. If the lance isn't meant to break at impact, the shock will be more violent for both opponents.

My guess would be that breaking a lance during a ceremony would be to show that there was enough force behind the thrust and that it hit solidly, which would otherwise be hard to demonstrate in a friendly joust or when striking a practice target. It's easy to imagine controversy and different opinions over the virtues of scoring more highly or scoring with more "style".

In combat I struggle to imagine any scenario where breaking a lance easily would be preferable to moderating the power in the first place. I don't think there's any physical benefit in terms of penetration or safety in making the lance any weaker than it needs to be, but that's something that would have to be confirmed by experimenting I guess. I suspect it would be better to dislocate a shoulder and deliver a debilitating wound rather than be the one with a weaker lance and potentially suffer the full power a sturdier lance while failing to penetrate with your own.

[Athos1660]

Breakability of the lance might also be related to the skills of its user/owner and his equipment (time period) due to the force of the impact. When you hit someone with a lance, the shock might be major for yourself.

A novice of the XIth century with stirrups but no grapper (arrêt de lance, see 3rd paragraph) nor lance rest (arrêt de cuirasse) might have opted for lighter and more fragile lances. A veteran knight of the 15th century equipped with grapper, lance rest and vamplate might have favoured a stronger/heavier/longer/more dangerous lance.

[Athos1660]

The Met has a nice collection of lance heads, for example this (scroll down for more).

[edb1815]

The Met has a nice collection of lance heads, for example this (scroll down for more).

The collection of Arms and Armor at the Met (the Wallace collection?) is excellent, so is the collection at the Philadelphia Museum of Art at least for US museums!

Some observations on the discussion:

Was the war lance meant to actually piece plate armor of the 15th&16th c. ? It seems the favorite weapons of men at arms were turning to blunt force weapons like the poleaxe or hammer. At least in a battle or mass melee.

Second I have read that when dismounting MAA sometimes used cut down lances. I wonder if the staff like techniques in the fechtbuch would be useful in that scenario - like half handing a sword for example.

Combat even in a melee sometimes still devolved into a series of individual contests which may be where some of these fechtbuch techniques come into play.

[Athos1660]

Was the war lance meant to actually piece plate armor of the 15th&16th c. ? It seems the favorite weapons of men at arms were turning to blunt force weapons like the poleaxe or hammer. At least in a battle or mass melee.

From what I know (mainly the French context in the XI-XVth cent.), the fights between knights (like the jousts) were aimed at unhorsing and capturing, not killing (which did not prevent accidents nor non-knight foot killing unhorsed knights sometimes).